
The Associated Press Top 25 college football poll started in 1936, the brainchild of former sports editor Alan J. Gould.
The number of teams ranked, the number of voters on the panel and how the ballots are tabulated has fluctuated over the years, but no news organization has been ranking teams and naming a major college football national champion longer than the AP. It has been the Top 10, Top 20 and, since 1989, the Top 25.